The present invention relates to the field of projected pixelated displays; more specifically, it relates to a method and an apparatus for increasing the resolution of projected pixelated images.
In a pixelated display system, light is either, depending upon the type of display panel used by the system, reflected from the display panel or passed through the display panel, directed through an optical system and projected on a screen to form an image. Each display panel includes an array of pixel elements that either selectively reflect the light onto or away from the optical system in the case of a reflected light system, or selectively block or transmit light in the case of a transmissive system. The array elements are controlled based on electronic data created from the original image, the image being broken into equal area pixels, the number of pixels being equal to the number of pixel elements in the display panel.
The resolution of a given display panel is limited by the number of discrete pixel elements of the display panel. For example, a xe2x80x9c1280 by 1024xe2x80x9d display can deliver no more than 1280 pixel elements horizontally and no more than 1024 lines of pixel elements vertically. Ultimately, the number of pixels in a given display panel is limited by the physical size of each pixel element in the display panel. Currently, to increase the resolution of a projected image either the display screen must be in increased in size or the pixel element size must be reduced in order to increase the pixel density. Both these solutions present problems. As the size of display panels increases, size, weight and power consumption become issues as well as manufacturability and cost. Reduction of pixel element size is limited by semiconductor technology and becomes progressively more expensive as pixel size decreases. Further, a higher density of pixels results in less output per pixel and produces a projected image with reduced overall light output and poor contrast.
A first aspect of the present invention is a pixelated image display system comprising: a first panel including an array of pixel elements, each pixel element partially masked by an opaque region; one or more additional panels, each additional panel including an array of pixel elements, each pixel element partially masked by an opaque region; means for directing a different subset of pixel data from an image dataset to each panel to control the pixel elements of each panel; and means for aligning and projecting interleaved pixel elements, in at least one of the horizontal and vertical directions, from each panel onto a screen to form a pixelated image.
A second aspect of the present invention is a pixelated image display apparatus comprising: a first panel comprising an array of pixel elements and a mask having opaque regions and transparent regions overlaying the array, each pixel element partially masked by a portion of one of the opaque regions of the mask; one or more additional panels, each additional panel comprising an array of pixel elements and a mask having opaque regions and transparent regions overlaying the array, each pixel element partially masked by a portion of one of the opaque regions of the mask; and means to interleave images of each panel and project the resultant interleaved image.
A third aspect of the present invention is a method of forming a pixelated image comprising: providing a first panel comprising an array of pixel elements and a mask having opaque regions and transparent regions overlaying the array, each pixel element partially masked by a portion of one of the opaque regions of the mask; providing one or more additional panels, each additional panel comprising an array of pixel elements and a mask having opaque and transparent regions overlaying the array, each pixel element partially masked by a portion of one of the opaque regions of the mask; and projecting an interleaved images of the images formed on each panel.